Midge Ure 2020 Tour Poster
Midge Ure Setlist
Tour Dates Jan 28 - St. Louis, MO - Off Broadway Tap Room
Jan 29 – Chicago, IL – City Winery Jan 30 – Hamilton, ON – The Casbah Jan 31 – Toronto, ON – Hugh’s Room 1H Feb 01 – Pawling, NY – Daryl’s House Feb 03 – Boston, MA – City Winery Feb 04 – Sellersville, PA – Sellersville Theater Feb 05 – Washington DC – City Winery – Wine Garden Feb 06 – New York, NY – Iridium Feb 07 – New York, NY – Iridium Feb 08 – Long Island, NY – My Fathers Place Feb 09 – Bordentown, NJ – Man Cave (2 Shows) INTERNATIONAL DATES
19/02/2020 Perth Concert Hall, Perth, UK
06/03/2020 The Powerstation, New Zealand 07/03/2020 Selwyn Sounds 2020, New Zealand 11/03/2020 The Tivoli, Brisbane, QLD, Australia 13/03/2020 Forum Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia 14/03/2020 Metro Theatre, Sydney, NSW, Australia 17/03/2020 The Gov, Hindmarsh, SA, Australia 16/05/2020 Lets Rock The Moor!, Cookham 20/05/2020 Slaktkyrkan, Stockholm, Sweden 21/05/2020 Södra Teatern, Stockholm, Sweden 22/05/2020 Pustervik, Gothenburg, Sweden 23/05/2020 Kulturbolaget, Malmö, Sweden 30/05/2020 Samsung Hall, Zürich, Switzerland 10/12/2020 Rosenhof, Osnabrück, Germany 11/12/2020 Kontaktdaten DOCKS 12/12/2020 Modernes, Bremen, Germany 13/12/2020 Columbia Theater, Berlin, Germany 15/12/2020 Haus Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany 16/12/2020 Paderhalle, Paderborn, Germany 17/12/2020 Colos-Saal, Aschaffenburg, Germany 18/12/2020 Technikum, Munich, Germany 19/12/2020 Essigfabrik, Cologne, Germany 20/12/2020 Goldsaal Dortmund, Germany Read More
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“Give me adventure, I’ll make the best of it” – Ultravox, ‘Reap the Wild Wind’
And for over four musical decades, legendary Ultravox/Visage singer Midge Ure has done just that, bringing his solo Songs, Questions & Answers Tour to the recordBar in downtown Kansas City for a two-hour, audience-driven evening of familiar songs, funny stories, and worldly insights.
Ure’s latest album is last September’s Soundtrack 1978-2019 (Chrysalis Records), re-visiting his classic Ultravox and solo/collaboration work over 32 tracks, as well as adds in previously unreleased material. The evening’s setlist was a similar musical template, going back to Ure’s first success with Visage in the late 70’s, to more recent solo songs.
A last-minute cancellation by his intended touring partner had almost scuttled the scaled-down US tour (in Europe and elsewhere, he’s touring with full band and playing the Vienna album in its entirety), but Ure decided, to everyone’s delight, to professionally carry on. The result is a very intimate, honest and open performance wherein the audience determines the show itself, through questions and song requests, resulting in a priceless extended living-room style concert.
With guitar in hand, Ure opened with 1988’s ‘Dear God’, an initial solo success and song not related to the XTC tune of the same name; but rather, one composed after his big-picture perspective changed after co-founding Band Aid/Live Aid and the birth of his first child.
Following, Ure took time to explain the format of the show, with the reflection that he did a similar tour twenty-five years ago, ending up not liking it very much, but was enjoying things much more this time around, despite the large distances required to drive between US cities.
Further explaining how music can evolve, and as a preface to the Ultravox song ‘Lament’, Ure mentioned how songs are like your children and during the band’s 2009 reunion tour, “that song had grown up”. Ure then fielded a question about his first time in America, touring as a guitarist with Thin Lizzy in 1979, riffing through a quick chord of ‘The Boys Are Back in Town’ before playing ‘Homeland’, a solo song purposely composed in early-Lizzy style to honor the memory of frontman Phil Lynott.
Ure went on to praise Beatles producer George Martin, whom the band worked with on 1982’s Quartet, describing him as a very music-savvy cross between a favorite schoolteacher and your father, before playing the lifting single, ‘Hymn’ from the album.
Ure also expressed admiration for previous producer Conny Plank, who helmed Ultravox’s prior three records, as one who took their German electro influences (Kraftwerk, Can, Neu!) to help create an atmosphere that became a reflection of the band itself, noting Plank described the song ‘Vienna’ as- “I see a man at a piano, very tired, in an empty ballroom playing the same melody for forty years” and helping make that atmosphere essential to the finished product.
When asked about favorite moments of arguably the greatest rock concert ever, 1985’s Live Aid, Ure recalled the anticipation and elation of watching the show’s beginning with all the slated artists gathered backstage in the holding room, watching U2 literally grow up on stage during their fifteen minutes, and a surreal private conversation with Freddie Mercury after the day-long event was an unqualified success.
Ure spoke of his general dislike of the trend of musical reality shows and when asked about collaborations, mentioned there were two types- artist-to-artist, and label-to-label, and we could guess which he preferred and felt was more authentic. When asked about favorite musicians to play with, he revealed a fondness of bassists (Level 42’s Mark King, Japan’s Mick Karn) though also let us in on an informal private guitar jam story with Eric Clapton at Ure’s one-time home in Montserrat.
Surprisingly, Ure’s most-streamed track from his song catalog of over forty years, is a David Bowie cover of ‘The Man Who Sold the World’, thanks mostly to its insertion in Metal Gear 5, after video game designer Hideo Kojima met Ure at a 2009 reunion concert and asked to use the song.
As far as MTV’s influence, Ure called it initially the perfect combination of UK bands having the promotional videos but no place to play them, and the US launching the music video channel in late 1981, and desperately needing content. As the format’s popularity grew, so did budgets and record company demands, making the song secondary to the music video in Ure’s eyes, and its overall appeal to he and the band, lessened predictably over time.
Ure confessed to having new music further along than even he realized (after eighteen months of work) but was skittish to share any samples of it, finally also admitting to himself after years of denying, that he does indeed write some love songs, just from a very different and non-traditional perspective.
When asked about a follow-up to his 2004 autobiography, Ure admitted he was open, when there was enough of more to say, and would also consider involving himself directly in another large charity concert, if apropos, though he mentioned the Band Aid Trust remains very alive and active, some thirty-six years later.
Musically, it was at first a bit strange to hear so many familiar synth-heavy Ultravox and Visage songs, stripped down and played acoustically on guitar, but that interpretation very quickly became the unique look into Ure’s songwriting process and often put a different spin on something known that’s been heard very differently for over thirty years.
Ure’s musical talent endures, the songs remain classic, and his stories and comments were often revelatory, witty, and effervescent. The evening provided the very fortunate that were present, a special chance to not only interact with an important legacy artist, but to also determine the show’s content and direction.
As Midge Ure closed the evening with Ultravox hits, ‘Dancing with Tears in My Eyes’ and ‘One Small Day’ he sang, “One day, where every hour could be a joy to me” and for the faithful fans in attendance, it became two hours of musical joy.
(click on any photo below to enlarge and see full image)
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Midge Ure at Record Bar, Kansas City (27 Jan 2020) |
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